


Truth Is

by moonlightconstellations



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Everybody Loves Hope, F/F, I keep doing that, Internal Monologue, Lizzie Saltzman Deserves The World, No Dialogue, Pre-Canon, Somewhat, Unrequited Love, is my shit I suppose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-02-29 04:37:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18771343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlightconstellations/pseuds/moonlightconstellations
Summary: Hope and Lizzie, through the years, from Lizzie’s perspective.





	Truth Is

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so I don’t know what this is, I just love them so much. Hopefully it’s not total garbage...

Lizzie is ten when she decides cannot stand her. 

Hope Mikaelson, the disgustingly perfect redheaded miracle child with special powers and family members a thousand years old ready to kill for her. A first name as vapid as her wardrobe, and a last name that everyone says actually stands for “murder.”

The girl with a perfect smile who burns reputations in the dark, who betrays people’s closely-kept secrets unapologetically.

The girl who single-handedly ruined Lizzie’s life.

The girl who has everything she could ever want, yet still takes from the rest of them.

She stole their father, she drove their mother away. She can turn the entire school against anyone she wants with just a carefully-placed sentence. She’s friends with no one, but uses everyone. For some reason, they let her.

Everything about her turns Lizzie’s insides into a burning rage.

~~~

Lizzie is eleven when she can’t take it anymore and makes a plan to take Hope Mikaelson down. It’s nothing specific yet, just the vague idea of _turn everything she loves against her_.

The miracle baby needs to be put in her place, and Lizzie swears by everything she has that she will one day pull off the best annihilation the world has ever seen.

She places the new binder created for this purpose on the shelf below her cache of Miss Mystic binders—it’s a collection of her mom’s and of Lizzie’s new ones, some ratty with age and others pristine.

Lizzie and Josie have a habit of rifling through each other’s things, though, so she thinks maybe placing her book of revenge out in the open isn’t the best idea. 

She goes to the forbidden room of grimoires—and really, her dad should’ve known that naming anything “forbidden” is a big neon sign asking every kid that hears about it to go wandering in—and rummages around for something that will do.

Eventually she finds a cloaking spell strong enough to create the appearance (as well as feel, to anyone but the caster) of an entire nonexistent wall. It’s hard to read—the Latin is a weird dialect, the page is faded and yellowed, and dust coats it (and later, when she tries to brush it off, her lungs too), but that’s the beauty of it. No one will expect this spell, and since it’s not dark magic, Emma and her helicopter tracing spell won’t notice.

In between classes, she plans methodically. This has to be done perfectly, and perfect takes time. Years, even.

~~~

Lizzie is thirteen when Hope ruins her plan. Or rather, _circumstance_ technically ruins her plan but she’s found that Hope is usually to blame for that anyway, in some roundabout way or another. (Once Lizzie learns the details of this particular case, this assumption is only confirmed. Demonic possession, Hope? _Really?_ )

Once she returns to school, Hope’s eyes are constantly red-rimmed from crying, and she doesn’t even pretend to be friends with the others anymore. That’s some relief, Lizzie thinks, because now they’ll finally start to see her for who she really is: someone completely unworthy of all the love she gets.

The entire situation is a mess.

Apparently, her mom died. Her dad too. Her uncle too.

Lizzie has never had an uncle, so she doesn’t even know whether that’s important. But her parents—that’s different. She knows about that, a little bit. 

For a moment, she almost feels bad for her. 

But Hope doesn’t deserve that, considering what she did to Lizzie.

Hope should thank her for just calling it off. Seriously. How does she not know how much Lizzie is accommodating her here?

~~~

Lizzie is fourteen when she commences the plan anyway, but switches her target from “anyone Hope so much as looks at” which is a laughably short list of people nowadays, to an older, undead boy called Roman Sienna. This is actually fun, until she realizes he’s stealing glances at Hope every time she walks into a room.

Hope avoids him, but Lizzie is incensed anyway. When she dumps Roman, but he doesn’t even notice.

 _Why does everyone—love her—so much?_ she thinks ten minutes later, in the midst of another episode. She keeps spiraling until Josie finds her, and they sink to the floor together, all the fight draining out of Lizzie in a second.

It’s not fair.

~~~

Lizzie is fifteen when she realizes her plan is pointless. It’s the first time in her life she’s ever given up on something, but what other options does she have? The gambit with Roman was a bust, and unfortunately Hope has retreated even further into her bubble of teenage isolation and angst.

~~~

And then Lizzie is only just sixteen when she finally realizes that she doesn’t hate Hope Mikaelson at all anymore.

That’s why it hits so hard when Josie confesses. Not just because it’s destroyed her to know that all this time, it was Josie spreading those rumors, and Josie letting her blame Hope for it all, and Josie who wanted to keep her from Hope so much that she created a lie to last a decade. Not just because Lizzie realizes that she was thawing out towards Hope on her own, but then this proves she never had anything to be mad about anyway.

No, none of that.

Because the moment Josie confesses, it just _clicks_.

That’s what it’s been the whole time.

A crush.

No, not just a crush.

She thinks she may be in love with her.

The realization makes her want to scream. 

Hope Mikaelson ruins everything.

And she loves and hates her so much for it.

~~~

A few days later, when she wraps her arms around a crying Hope in front of the entirety of the school and the rest of the pageant guests, Lizzie doesn’t delude herself like she used to that the warmth she feels when they touch is actually hatred. She embraces it—embraces _her_ —and tries to be her shield. She even lets her snot get in her hair.

Because that’s what you do for people you love. You help them. You put yourself aside for them.

Hope squeezes back, the force of her sobs twisting Lizzie’s stomach into knots, and they stay there like that, all the sorries and forgiveness expressed between them in the single movement, even though neither will directly acknowledge it.

Progress.

The truth is, loving Hope Mikaelson is her redemption.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, first things first, I wanted to address that yeah, one paragraph was slightly anti-Josie, but I believe it’s realistic for who Lizzie is and how she’s dealing with the revelation.
> 
> Second, and perhaps even more important: I hate Roman Sienna just as much as everyone else (which is to say _viciously_ ) but I had to pick a name of someone at the school then who wasn’t one of the mains. Since Hope had history with him and Lizzie was trying to upset her, he unfortunately was the obvious [only] choice for that one paragraph.
> 
> Third, I know it’s short. Truthfully I ran out of inspiration for this fic...but I definitely still have other Hizzie ideas!
> 
> Anyway, what do you think? Kudos, comments, and feedback are always appreciated! I love you guys.
> 
> Find me on tumblr @hopewolves.


End file.
